System's Malice

Seth frowned as he trailed behind Sera. He couldn't believe she was using him like that. If she was this calculative and self-serving, what else could she be keeping from him?

He tentatively stared at the back of her bowl-cut blond hair and wondered what went through her mind when she saw his tears. If she saw through him, that undoubtedly complicated things, and if she didn't, he knew she'd find out sooner rather than later.

If she was as perceptive as he suspected, he won't be able to hide his abilities from her for long and, they'd have that fight he so ingeniously avoided on the rooftop. Inviting her might have been a mistake.

Seth muttered inaudible curses and tried to infer what strategies and plots the blond-haired devil would come up with to get him to spill his secrets. Sera noticed his lingering eyes and shot him a questioning look. His eyes dodged hers, and he hurriedly turned to a squad of city guards he saw patrolling in the distance.

Realizing he would get nowhere only from staring, he turned his attention to the system rewards he was promised for beating Sera in a duel.

'Blood born system' he mentally called out.

The system faintly tangible bloody display popped into view.

[Mission completed

Would you like to claim rewards?]

[Claim information about your blood core and tainted light magic]

'Yes,' he nodded.

The notification screen stretched out several inches, and a large slab of text appeared on the screen. His eyes darted left to right, as he searched the faces of middle ring dwellers that surrounded him. His weary eyes met and passed numerous merchants, children, and patrolmen; it was as he suspected, they couldn't see the system screens as he could.

He found this feature fascinating and conflicting, and it made him question the true nature of the system. What kind of lost magic was it based on? Did all new blood mages have invisible systems as he did? Was this some kind of soul magic or elaborate mental construct?

The mysterious and fatalistic nature of the system made him question the powers and abilities it promised.

So far, its faults outweighed all known advantages. Sure, there was promise of limitless power to come, but right now, the system was incorporeal and distracting in fights. It was nothing but a by-product of his encounter with a malicious mage that robbed him of his cultivation and aided in his sister's kidnapper. He was beginning to think he'd be better off without the system.

He let out an irritated sigh and looked to the floating screen.

[Three nights ago, when you were attacked by the blood mage formerly known as Ranok, he attempted to integrate with you and steal your body by expunging your consciousness and conduits.

During the integration process, your cores began to merge, but the process was interrupted when your sister, Tessa, killed him with her holy roar spell. The disruption caused you to lose most of your mana and retain some portion of Ranok power to keep you from dying. You inadvertently inherited his blood core and some of his abilities. A part of his darkness conduit attached itself to your core, and you automatically gained a new element, but it also clashed with the conduit you had within you.]

Seth nodded. The system was not entirely useless. It confirmed one of his theories, and that explained why he had a blood core and a darkness conduit.

[Upon acquisition of the darkness element, your light magic became polluted and poisoned your core.]

"Wait, Poison!" he blurted out. 'What the hell is going on?'

Sera eyes pricked up, she swiveled around and rushed to his side.

"What's this you say about poison?" She asked, her voice laced with anger and concern. Seth fumbled, "It was only- I can't-" She looked to him with expectant eyes. "Well, spit it out. Were you poisoned? Or was it your sister? Answer me. You could be dying this very moment!" She leaned closer with each question.

"I am not poisoned, nor is my sister, I think-" he searched his mind of a plausible lie. "I was thinking about my sister and how she was captured. I thought maybe she was slowly poisoned during the fight and was captured as soon as she weakened," he avoided her eyes. "I discarded that thought, however. I, too, was cut and felt no weakness. The healers would have found something if I was." Seth lied easily.

Sera studied him with a tepid, detached eyes, "I suppose not," she said as she turned around and they both resumed their walk to the gate. Seth's chest tightened. He felt like a young, clueless child tiptoeing around a knowing matron. She let him keep his secrets and lie to her without batting an eye or uttering a word of protest, his distrust for her grew further.

He reigned in his trembling heart and continued to read. There had to be an antidote, right? The system wouldn't have kept it from him till now if there was no way out this mess.

[The poison will cause a deep corruption. And the corruption will grow over time whether you gather holy magic or not. And it will destroy your core and body. Tainted light is a potent and volatile magic element. Its connection to Gaia is warped, and it will continually try to balance itself by drawing holy and dark magic.

Your body won't be able to handle your rapidly expanding magic core, and the constant strain of absorbing mana without a proper absorption technique will weaken your body and kill you. I estimate that in three years, you will be just as sickly as Ranok was, and you will die if the balance is not restored in the conduit or the element completely expended.]

Seth looked up from the screen and recalled Ranok frail, sickly body, and bleeding wounds. Was he going to look that at the end? No! He shook his head and dismissed the thought.

No, Ranok tried to take his body because he obviously had a plan. There had to be a way to balance out the warring elements. He breathed through his mouth to calm himself. Three years was simply not enough time. There had to be an effective, more detailed solution. He read on.

[To correct the imbalance, you will need to absorb enough holy mana, through your conduit, to even out the portion of the dark conduit that is polluting your core. Once it is balanced, your life will no longer be in danger.]

'That's it?' he thought 'All I need to do not to feel my lungs collapse and cough up blood as my body slowly betrays itself is to absorb enough Holy attribute mana! That's easy!'

He couldn't believe what he was reading. Why scare him so bad when the solutions to his problem were so simple. He felt as though the system was toying with him. 'Maybe there's a mind this bloody screen.' Seth thought.

Seth set his theories aside and resolved to get rid of his 'poison' on the spot. After all, the sun was still out, and the air rich with holy mana. He stopped walking, closed his eyes, took in deep breaths, and pulled the particles of holy mana that floated around him into his core. He felt the tainted light conduit whir to live for the first time.

Though the absorption rate was slower than a trickle, it still felt fast as he watched his tainted light conduit rapidly expand. He searched for the darkness element inside the conduit and noticed it was much larger than the light portion. Holy mana poured inside his core, and he felt the grey light flicker as both halves that make up the conduit – holy and darkness- curl into a balanced sphere.

His lips widened to a satisfied grin as he felt the conduit stabilize. Satisfied, having perfectly balanced both sides of his unstable conduit, he altered his breathing and tried to cut off the flow of mana through his conduit slowly. The trickling mana reduced to drops, and he tried to wall off the mana, but he felt his control slip. The drip was constant, even with his holy mana absorption technique inactive.

His head creased in concentration as he tried even harder to stop the flow. He walled off his mana core and tried to push back accumulating beads of pure, holy mana trickling through his conduit, but the flow only increased.

His conduit expanded from the tension build-up, and he felt his mind afire with pain. He bolstered his heart and pushed back even harder until he felt his mind crack under the weight of the pressure. An avalanche of indescribable pain swept over his mind and forced him to divert all his attention to resisting the pain. The walls he mounted crumbled, and his tainted light conduit nearly doubled in size, and a steady drip of mana flowed through his core. His knees buckled, and he coughed blood. His nostrils trickled with the sticky red, and his ears had begun to bleed too.

'The hell,' he thought, convulsing and coughing.

Sera turned back and made her way back to him. She bent down until their eyes met. His borderlander uniform was drenched his sweat, and his eyes shrunken, and his lips bloody and chaffed.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

"I-" his voice trailed off into a coughing fit. "I- am clearly not," he wiped off the blood on his lower lip. The crowd around them watched with curious eyes, and a steady murmur rose in the background.

"Well, you have to be. The group of mercenaries you are about to meet has powers, and abilities greenhorns like you have not seen before. They are ambitious, ruthless-"she offered him her hand and pulled him up to his feet. "-and impatient. They will abandon you if you slow them down. Do you understand?" She stressed her question.

Seth nodded and dusted his knees. Sera smiled, "good," now let's cross the gates and head down to the lower ring."

Seth forced himself to keep a straight face and focus solely on the task ahead, without allowing his thoughts to think on his failed attempt at balancing his core. Though he tried to convince himself, there wasn't substantial damage; he felt like a large chunk of his life force had whittled away.

Sera marched towards the gates at an increased pace, this time, Seth followed close behind. They weaved through carriages and beasts as they inched closer to the massive gates. He could only spy hundreds of Dragon Bastiallas jutting out from the crenels of the battlement on the mountainous walls.

When they passed the last of returners before them, they came to the gates themselves. Titan Steel bars crisscrossed with large concave teeth, hanging overhead an arch, held in place by chains so large, grown men could walk straight through. People were stopped, questioned, and cleared through before entry or exit regardless of their rank, clothes, or coin purse.

The guards wore a mixture of white and golden glittering armor, and they had a mechanical efficiency to them. Six guards handled clearance with unperturbed, emotionless eyes, and fifty more stood on both sides of the gates gripping spears and sword handles. The iron guards of Brightmont, a testament to Imperial might and Mormon's military supremacy. They report directly to the Emperor and a few handpicked generals loyal to the Empire. No entered or left the capital without Emperor's Tanu's knowledge.

Sera shrunk back when she locked eyes with one of the iron guards, and steadied herself, coughing and grunting. Seth arched a brow, "Still scared of the Iron guard?"

"There are some things that just stay with you over the years. An Iron guard's fist is not something you can so easily forget. I would think you, of all people, would understand," she said without looking back.

They walked up to the guards at the gates and presented their identifications. Both produced a citizen tile and stated their business in the lower ring, using only ambiguous words, and scant detail.

"I want to see my masters," and "he wants to find his sister." They were waved through the guards, and both of them descended into the lower ring.

The wave of prosperity Linburn spoke of clearly didn't trickle down to the lower ring. The structures were just as ancient and ruinous as he remembered. His eyes bounced off buildings, statues, structures, and people as they walked by.

The stone walls of the houses and structures were dulled with age and moss. The narrow streets, branching out from the central cobblestone road that led up to the upper ring, were cracked and puddled. Rows of identical homes, taverns, inns, shops, and temples stretched out to an endless line of patterned monotony- the architect that planned Brightmont was clearly uninspired while he worked on the lower ring.

Without notice, Sera turned from the gate's road and slipped through a narrow passage between two shops. She waded through cracks, passages, wormed through openings, and strode down broad crumbling stairs before stopping in front of a tavern with a large wooden plaque mounted above the doorway. The words "Red hornet" were stylized in cursive above a very crude carving of what the artist that conditioned the piece thought a red hornet was supposed to look like.

Seth almost lost her in the network of stairs, alleys, and ruined structures, several times as they navigated the road in-between places. He broke into half-sprints several times as he hurried to retrace his steps and, hopefully, glimpse Sera as she strode ahead. His unsteady breathing and throbbing head made keeping up even harder.

Through the jagged network of turns, climbs crawls and descents, though his mind and body grappled with a laborious task, he constantly thought about his tainted light and the malice of the system, though he didn't want to dwell on the implications of his blunder just yet.

It didn't warn him that fine controlling the mana that flowed through his conduit would be impossible. Why would it choose to withhold sensitive information like that? If it was a conscious mind, does it not realize that they shared the same fate?

As though his mind intended to scold him and pick the system's side, he recalled reading a blurb of words that categorically mentioned that his tainted light conduit was constantly absorbing Holy mana. He tried pushing the memory back, but it continually resurfaced, slightly fresher and clearer, each time it came forth. The memory tormented him until he ground his teeth and finally admitted that he was the architect of his own misfortune.

It was undoubtedly his fault, but he couldn't help but feel like the ominous system laid a trap for him in waiting. Clearly, it wanted him to teach him a lesson. If the all-powerful mage Ranok couldn't cure himself of the imbalance, how could he? Maybe some parts of the mage survived?

He shook his head and grumbled as he passed through the final passageway and onto a street overflowing with mages and their budding, wand wielding neophytes.

"You're finally here. She is beautiful, isn't she?" Sera said, starring at two-story tavern in front of them.

"She is?" Seth said, looking at the grey two-story tavern before him with a puzzled expression. He wasn't quite sure he'd describe it as beautiful.

"Of course she is," she chirped, her face lighting up with emotion. Sera raised brow 'she is very emotional about this place.'

She turned to him, and stuck her finger in his face, "if you do anything to embarrass me, I swear I will leave you for dead if you ever get wounded on our journey."

Seth nodded; she certainly meant business. Just how important was this team of mages?

"You have to do everything I say once we get in there. No second-guessing me and no talking back. You got it?" Seth answered with a nod.

She walked up to the door of the Red hornet, clenched her fist, and reached for the handle.